(Vol. 4, No. 1 - Spring 2000)
What Schools Should Be Asking
About Student Achievement Data
School leaders in Jefferson County have a high regard for JCPS assessment
coordinator Ken Draut and his willingness to pull school and student information
from the school system's massive database and shape it in ways that can
help schools analyze their progress and plan improvements.
On request, Draut and his staff will sit down with principals and middle
school leadership teams to help them make some sense of the reams of data
available from the district's research office. Schools have access to scores
from the CATS testing program, the nationally-normed CTBS, assessments of
students' basic skills, and much more. The office can also provide feedback
from teacher, student and parent surveys; it can supply details about student
demographics, describe district enrollment patterns and share data from
the U.S. Census.
The research staff can also "disaggregate" data, allowing interested
schools to examine student performance by race, gender, socio-economic background,
subject, and grade level. This kind of analysis, Draut says, is an essential
first step for schools that are serious about improving their programs.
The second step - and the most important, Draut says - is for schools to
use the information wisely in making decisions about instructional programs,
professional development for teachers, and other actions that address problems
raised by the analysis.
"You can produce tons of statistics, but the important thing is what
you do with them," Draut says.
Here are some of the questions Draut and his staff believe school teams
should be asking about their data:
- In what content areas is student performance significantly lower or
higher than in others?
- In looking at student performance in various subjects over time, what
trends are indicated? What trends do teams see in the number of students
who are in the CATS novice, apprentice, proficient, and distinguished categories?
What content areas appear to have little change? "Steady upward or
downward trends are significant and may indicate that intervention strategies
are either working or not working."
- What specific strategies appear to be working? For example, has an
emphasis on reading instruction produced steady increases in reading scores?
- What is the relationship of skills that cross over content areas;
for example, writing, problem solving, reading comprehension and critical
thinking?
- Are there significant performance discrepancies (by content and by
grade level) between or among groups according to gender? Race or ethnicity?
Socio-economic status?
- Are there significant performance discrepancies (by content and by
grade level) among the general population of students and students who are
in Title I? Migrant programs? Special education? ESS? Gifted and talented?
Once school teams determine the answers to these questions, they face a
difficult and often ambiguous task: deciding on strategies that might address
any noted discrepancies.
Schools that want to delve even deeper into data analysis can arrange study
sessions with staff of the Kentucky Association of School Councils. For
a modest fee, KASC can produce a detailed break- down of data from a school's
Kentucky Performance Report. A parent-friendly study packet walks school
councils and leadership teams through a thought-provoking process that relates
the analysis to the school's Consolidated Plan for improvement. (Call 606-238-2188.)
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